when the sun paints us gold
by EmptySequence
Summary: "When I was your age, my grandma used to tell me that the stars twinkling were everyone up in heaven, waving down at us to let us know that they were okay and watching over us. I like to think she's up there watching me now." One-shot, AU.


_Hey little train, wait for me,_

_I was held in chains but now I'm free,_

_I'm hanging in there, don't you see;_

_In this process of elimination_

* * *

><p>I curl away from his body slowly, savoring the last bit of the feel of his skin melding onto mine. Resisting the urge to run my hands over the unblemished skin of his chest, my hands fold under the pillow beneath me. Concentrating on the pulse of the music beneath us, I flick my eyes to the ceiling and imagine the expanse of stars that lay above it, hidden from my view. My skin is still encompassed by a light sheen of sweat, from long hours of dancing and grinding and the<em> thumpthumpthump<em> of Buck Merrill's radio.

Dallas rolls over, hand landing next to mine and barely brushing against it. I admire his features for a long moment, the moon casting an ethereal glow over every contour of his face. Sleeping, he could be mistaken for an innocent boy rather than the hardened greaser that everyone knows him to be. I brush the tips of my fingers over his, my own mangled nails meeting the surprisingly soft flesh of his hand. I want to believe that in ten years we'd move past all this; all the parties and cheating and fights, yet that dark, bleak spot growing heavier on my horizon seems to grow impossibly larger.

_{you don't deserve him, anyway}_

He stirs, cold blues meeting my brown ones with a curious look. I search for that typical look of malice and anger hidden in the depths, but all I can see is _blue_.

"Why do you watch me so much?" He asks after a moment, gaze unwavering. I try to find the words to answer his question, maybe even deny it, but my throat seems to lock up and my shoulders merely shrug. "Well quit it. It's weird."

I watch him as he slides out from under the covers, tugging on his clothes and readying himself to leave. As usual. My heart wills my mouth to move, to ask him to stay for even just a moment longer, but the damaged brain lodged in my skull silences me and I, once again, watch him leave.

_You're not an awful thing to watch, Dallas._

* * *

><p>He stares at me from across the booth, eyeing me as I glance at my meal with distaste. My eyes burn with tears I'd never let surface. It's a rare thing for Dallas to ever take me out and the nausea bubbling in my gut, the intrusion in my body, makes me want to scream at the injustice of everything and just <em>cry<em>.

"Why aren't you eatin'?" Dallas demands. I will myself to pick up the burger on the plate before me, but my hands shake by my sides and I shrug, my tired eyes blinking at him. "Fuck this, Sylvia. You can take your shit to Tim."

He strides angrily out of the diner, leaving me to slump down in the seat and find money to pay for the meal I can't afford. I almost want to follow him out and the slam the plate, food and all, over his head for his self-centered antics, but I can't muster the energy. So I drop the change on the table, sink further into the seat, and stare at the lone fly buzzing on the wall.

Alone, just like me.

* * *

><p>My sister combs the brush through my hair, tiny arms barely able to reach my head. Once in a blue moon, Sophia and I find time to be sisters and do the things other girls do. I push away the bogus reputation Dallas has given me, she forgets about learning to read or addition, <em>whatever<em>, and we make time for each other.

The golden sun paints it's rays over our faces through the small, mildewed window by my vanity, filtering through the grime of the glass and the paint-splattered lace curtains that had once been white. Sophia hums a lullaby to herself as she works, stirring the stillness of the messy room that I never make time to clean. I hear a gasp, and I knit my brows in worry and pull myself from my thoughts to see what happened.

Eyes widening in horror, I stare the brown clump of hair having just landed in my lap. Sophia's frightened brown eyes meet mine for a fleeting moment, a mirror image of my own.

I barely make it to the toilet before the bile in my throat leaves my mouth.

* * *

><p>Ever since I was a little girl, I've despised hospitals. Sitting in the cancer ward, next to shrunken Cora Davis, I try once again to raise my weakened body from the wheelchair, but slump my too tired body back down with a defeated sigh and will myself not to cry because Sylvia Sparrow <em>doesn't cry<em>.

"You'll be up an moving in no time," Cora says with a encouraging smile, the wrap around her hairless head only making me more antsy. The mint green of the walls remind me of school bathroom stalls and the food tastes like cardboard. I want _home_ so badly that I ache but I can't even get up, let alone devise an escape plan.

Tina, a small, leukemia-ridden girl, seats herself next to me, green eyes peering up at me as she cradles her doll closer. She says nothing, but her eyes are dimmer than days before and that scares me. Tina is the only breath of fresh air in the place, her innocence casting a new kind of light on my mess of a life, and if that's taken away, I don't know how I'll make it through the rest of treatment.

I pull nervously at one of the few patches of chestnut hair remaining on my scalp, eyeing the door. _He_'s yet to come and visit and I momentarily wonder if he even cares, let alone knows. I lose myself in my mundane thoughts, his blue eyes swimming at the forefront of my mind, selfishly letting myself forget about the pressing matters and sick people around me.

* * *

><p>Three days pass. I watch as Tina's body is wheeled out of Cora's room, noticing her soft, crocheted blanket still laying at the foot of her bed.<p>

* * *

><p>I return to school three weeks later, a silken wrap dotted with little pink flowers, hand-picked specially by Sophia, tied neatly around my bare scalp and withering figure draped in my now baggy clothes. The whispers of my astounded classmates follow me from class to class, leaving a bitter taste in my mouth and my eyes pricking with tears that I refused to let anyone else see.<p>

_He_'s here today. I meet his eyes in the hall, and though he looks like he wants to say something, he keeps his distance and watches me with perfectly blank eyes.

_"Dal, she's all sick and shit, cut it out."_ The backhand I deliver to Steve Randal's face after his thoughtless, and rather loud, statement is unexpected and earns me a trip back home, but I can't keep the anger out of my system as I replay his careless words over and over in my mind.

Later that night, a rap on my window rouses me from my day-dreaming stupor. I glance over at Dallas, who, as usual, doesn't wait for my permission and slides through my already opened window. He wastes no time in shrugging off his leather jacket and toeing off his shoes, sliding down on the lilac sheets next to me. We lay at least a half a foot apart, drinking each other in after weeks apart. I try to ignore his eyes flicking up to the light fuzz covering my otherwise hairless scalp, traveling down to my placid skin.

Hesitantly, he returns my weary gaze and I practically watch as he carefully paws around his lifelong buildup of pride, warring with himself whether or not to let his inhibitions go or to let _me_ go. My heart practically beats out of my chest as he takes my hand, all the years of carefully constructed walls and pretending not to care melting away. Dallas works hard to keep his face a blank slate, but traces of the emotions he's desperately trying to hide show through, something I think only I'd be able to catch after three years of studying him.

"How long do you have?" Dallas asks, lifting my hand and letting his gaze run over the pads of each finger and every line across my palms instead of meeting my eyes. I know he can feel me shrug, though he says nothing.

"I watched a little girl die," I murmur after a few moments of tense silence. He finally drags his icy orbs up to mine, catching the fleeting traces of fear in my own.

"You're Sylvia. You know you'll be fine," Dallas finally manages to respond, though it's rough and it's obvious he's physically trying not to care too much. I take the initiative to slide closer to him, curling into his side and burying my face into his chest before his eyes can drag me into that dark pit of self-misery I'd lost myself in while I was housed in the hospital.

"I don't want to die." My words are muffled into his shirt, and I breathe in the musky scent of cigarettes and cologne.

My heart beats once, twice, three times before he tilts my chin up, pressing his lips to mine, melding our bodies together and brushing his tongue with mine. My eyelids flutter shut, moving my lips with his, flesh against flesh for the first time since what feels like an eternity. He pulls away first, eyes burning into mine.

"You won't."

* * *

><p>Dallas holds my hair away from my face as I release the minuscule contents of my stomach into the porcelain bowl below me, sobs choking me as the acid burns my throat. I collapse against him, and though he's still tense from the new feelings that come with <em>caring<em>, he strokes his thumbs over my cheeks and it calms me to know this side of him is _only_ for me.

I don't cry the next round of sickness.

* * *

><p>The cramps in my stomach aren't aided by the itchy hospital blankets, nor is the empty room in which Dallas had yet to step foot him. Weeks since his aid and care passed, and I know he won't be showing up any time soon. The deep gashes in his ego and pride that letting parts of him he'd sworn away shine through had caused are enough to keep him away for a long time. I wistfully glance back out the window, trying with no avail to push those <em>eyes<em> from my mind.

* * *

><p>Cora used to visit my room on a daily basis, but her weakened state binds her to her hospital bed and IV fluids. My mouth is dry and throat scratchy, so I lay in bed and try not to think about Dallas's hubris or the incomprehensible sounds emitted from my roommate's mouth.<p>

When Nurse Francis delivers my food, Dan, a small child from a further wing of the cancer ward, wheels himself into my room behind her and parks himself by my bed, helping himself to my jell-o without a word.

"Sylvia...do you believe in heaven?" He asks after a moment, placing the empty jell-o cup onto my tray. I slide the nauseating chicken soup away from my, my dry tongue darting out to wet my equally as dry lips.

"I do. When I was your age, my grandma used to tell me that the stars twinkling were everyone up in heaven, waving down at us to let us know that they were okay and watching over us. I like to think she's up there watching me now," I reply.

_{and with your reputation, you'll be far away from there when you leave this place}_

"Maybe we'll see each other there." His green eyes peer up at me with an innocence that makes my heart squeeze and a sad smile cross my lips.

"I hope so, Danny. I hope so."

* * *

><p>I'm drifting in between dreaming and reality, images of barbecues in the backyard from my childhood, grandma's smiling face, and the feel of Dallas against me swim in and out of my consciousness.<p>

"Sylvia?" _His_ voice rings in my ears and my bleary eyes scan the blurred room drunkenly, the medications and recent IV insertion leaving me in a haze.

I pat my hand around incoherently until it finds his, squeezing it weakly.

His lips on my forehead are the last thing I feel before I let the velvety blackness envelope me for the last time.

* * *

><p>The absence of time is something that has always gone unnoticed by me. Though now, as I stare across the road at the clock with no numbers, I grow curious. The bench beneath me feels as light as air, the hollow sound of the musty wind blowing through the vast expanse of fields I've been delivered to ringing in my ears. The beeping of the machines have finally left, the IV's gone from my arms once and for all.<p>

Moments later, the white bus pulls up next to me and I board with a new-found sense of direction. Tina is seated close to the front, the seat next to her vacant. She motions for me to sit, sliding over to offer me the spot with a view. I sit, grasping the smaller girl's hand and twining my fingers with hers as I glance out the window at the rolling hills, glowing golden in the setting sun, just in time to read the rusty sign the bus passes. I almost imagine him leaning against it, weed hanging from his mouth, white hair mussed, and his familiar scent wafting from his frame, body wrapped in his usual leather jacket. I recite the words in my mind with the small smile still playing on my lips.

_Thanks for visiting Tulsa, visit us again soon!_

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><p><strong>Fin.<strong>

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**~Holly xx**


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